This report presents results from three national nutrition surveys that have been adjusted to improve data comparability. It is based on findings from a bridging study that was undertaken to assess and account for differences between the 1983 National Dietary Survey of Adults, the 1985 National Dietary Survey of Schoolchildren and the National Nutrition Survey 1995. Adjustments were made to all three sets of survey results to allow their use in dietary monitoring in Australia.

The User Guide contains information relating to the 2007 Australian National Children's Nutrition and Physical Activity Survey, including the survey objectives, methods, design and content, as well as data processing and interpretation.

This report contains the main findings of the 2007 Australian National Children's Nutrition and Physical Activity Survey which was commissioned by the Department of Health and Ageing, the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, and the Australian Food and Grocery Council.

Three strategies, singly or in combination for the primary prevention of Neural Tube Defects, are now in use in several countries. These include: fortification of foods with folate, promotion of periconceptional use of folate supplements, and promotion of diets high in natural sources of folate. Folate fortification is the preferred strategy in many countries because of its potential to reach the largest proportion of women of child-bearing age prior to conception, in doses thought to be effective. As yet, no systematic evaluations of the outcomes of national folate fortification programs have been published; these are early days.

In response to mounting evidence from observational studies and randomised trials of the benefits of periconceptional folic acid in reducing the risk of neural tube defects, the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) recommended that women planning a pregnancy or likely to become pregnant should be offered advice about dietary folate and periconceptional folic acid supplementation. Subsequently an NHMRC Expert Panel on Folate Fortification recommended voluntary folate fortification of foods.

Six of the short dietary questions used in the 1995 National Nutrition Survey were evaluated for relative validity both directly and indirectly and for consistency, by documenting the differences in mean intakes of foods and nutrients as measured on the 24-hour recall, between groups with different responses to the short questions.

Eating habits are associated with the risk of a range of health problems and influence health and wellbeing at all stages of life. The potential benefits of healthy eating have long been promoted through development of dietary advice for Australians and other strategies to improve availability and consumption of a healthy range of foods.

There is a growing interest in assessing food habits and population nutrition by Commonwealth, state and territory health departments and by non-government and commercial organisations. This usually takes the form of special purpose surveys, or monitoring, where surveys using a similar design and dietary assessment methods are repeated over time. These have a broad range of objectives but frequently include short questions to assess food habits and breastfeeding practices.

This report provides guidelines for comparing results from the 1983 National Dietary Survey, the 1985 National Dietary Survey of School children and the 1995 National Nutrition Survey. The principle finding of the study is that it is inappropriate to directly compare published results from the 1983 and 1985 surveys with those from the 1995 survey to assess trends in the food and nutrient intake of adults and children. Allowances are needed to account for differences in sample design, collection and processing practices, the food composition databases and changes in the demographic composition of the Australian population between these surveys. The bridging study findings enable the results from these three surveys to be used in dietary monitoring in Australia.